


Wake Me Up

by Whreflections



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Consensual Infidelity, Drunk Sex, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Infidelity, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Underage Sex, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-28
Updated: 2015-02-11
Packaged: 2018-03-09 12:31:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3249800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whreflections/pseuds/Whreflections
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’ve never been my gods and I don’t know that you’re real, but I don’t know that the seven are, either.  If you’re still here, if you hear me, I swear to serve him all my life.  Give me that, and I’ll ask nothing else.”</p><p>The seven kingdoms love their Dragon Prince, but Jon loves Rhaegar Targaryen.  He'd made peace with that, and he never expected that love to be returned.  (And if he's right in that, history goes one way.  If it is returned, however, history could go another.  Or, in which one difference begun years before the tourney at Harrenhal doesn't quite change everything, but it just might change enough.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I. A Griffin

**Author's Note:**

> The other night, I jokingly told my friend that without my intending it, the first part of this fic had kind of become "in which Jon Connington has sex with everyone but the person he wants to have sex with", and that's sort of true. It's also true that all of that sex is unhealthy in some form or another, and that some of it is pretty dark. However, those instances are shown to establish the background Jon came from in contrast to what he eventually finds with Rhaegar- the difference is meant to be pretty stark and it is, so if that's going to upset you it might be best to either not read this one, or skip to the end of this chapter; you won't hurt my feelings if you do either. 
> 
> ...however, as dark as this fic is in places(because spoiler alert, not all the bad things have happened yet lmao), I do want to say up front that this was written out of the desire for me to write a happier ending for these two than the one they've got in canon. ...but happier than George R. R. Martin is a pretty wide net so, bear with me, XD
> 
> Anyway, this is my first Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire fic so I really hope you guys enjoy it! <3

_I can't tell where the journey will end_

_But I know where it starts_

_They tell me I'm too young to understand_

_They say I'm caught up in a dream_

_Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes_

_Well that's fine by me_

_So wake me up when it's all over_

_When I'm wiser and I'm older_

_All this time I was finding myself_

_And I didn't know I was lost_

_-Wake Me Up_

 

As a boy, he believes in magic.  Magic, and griffins. 

Six years old, small enough to still fit neatly into their maester’s window, he spends an afternoon curled up on a cushion, watching the wind play through the spring leaves and asking question after question. 

“But if the Targaryen’s had dragons, did we have griffins?  Where’d they go?  What were they like?  Can you show me?  I hear they have skulls in the Red Keep;  do we have skulls in the cellars?  I looked, but father said—“

The maester chuckles, presses a book into his hands before ruffling his hair and tells him that once, long ago when there was magic, if history is to be believed there were griffins. 

Jon tries to read the book, he really does, but the words are as yet too big; all he can take in are the pictures.  They’re old and often clumsy but here and there some excellent theories are put the page in the form of art and he cherishes those, traces them with his fingers until he fears to fade the ink. 

For a year at least, he sleeps with griffins under his pillow, and dreams of magic so thick in the air that a griffin is spun from the breeze to bear him up, as a carving may be revealed by skilled hands to hide within shapeless wood. 

\-------

At thirteen, the wind has lost all power to bear him up.  He no longer feels for it the way he did as a child, reaching out windows with questing fingers to feel even the tiniest spark of joy at its lift.  He is no longer a proper child, a boy not quite a man heading off soon to be a squire, who has learned too much about himself. 

Last year, he let the chamber maid he’d seen scuttling off with the stable boys lead him out into the field just beyond his favorite woods.  He was old enough, he knew he was; he’d begun to wake with seed spilled over and dried sticky against his skin.  He was old enough, and still his heart had beat prey fast in his chest as he kissed her.  Looking back, he can see his fear for the knowledge it was but on that afternoon he had tried to tamp the knowledge down, kissed her with such effort that it wasn’t long before she stopped him.  Curious, she groped between his legs, and he felt her smile against his throat at how soft and pliable he was beneath her palm. 

She swore to tell no one of his nerves, and gods bless her, she hadn’t. 

He went further into the woods and gave in to the upheaval of his stomach against the truth that the trouble wasn’t nerves and never had been.  He knew, he already knew, perhaps had always known; it had never been the serving girls he looked at.  His eyes had been for the stable hands, the squires, the knights in their mail with strong arms and thick thighs. 

He knows too much about himself now, enough to suspect it’s the realities of life that have taken his dreams of magic from him—it only stands to reason, now, that the magic is all long gone.  How could it exist, after all, in a world where accidents like him are born?  He is no fit rider for a griffin, as out of step as he is with nature, with honor. 

He fears and hates and wonders, and yet for all that, he cannot be any other than what he is.  He can’t stop looking. 

The knight who notices is no regular to Griffin’s Roost, but a traveler, a hedge knight no doubt.  He is tall and scarred, black haired and lined with age around dark eyes that give little away.  He catches up to Jon in the stable, murmurs lower than the whickering horses, “I know about you, boy.  I saw you watching Ser Darin’s squire.”

Jon fights the panic badly, his breath too tellingly quick and heavy.  He reaches out to cling to the edge of a stall for stability, realizes only as he’s in the motion that that, too, gives him away.  “I didn’t—I don’t—“

“At ease, little lord.  Your secret’s safe; I’ve had long years of practice.  I know the signs of my own.” 

His first thought, stupid though he knows it to be it, is wonder at the actual existence of another man like him. 

His second, likely no wiser, is that before him lies a chance that may not present itself again. 

Both, likely, are in his eyes when he looks up. 

The knight squeezes his shoulder, firm and lingering.  “Ride out with me tomorrow.  We’ll discuss it then.” 

Jon knows there will be no discussion, knows it all night long as he lies in bed awake, knows it as he saddles his horse just past dawn.  He knows, and for the first time since he was a little boy his fingers shake as he gives Tracee her bridle.  Still, he goes.  He knows what he isn’t; he has to become certain of what he is, even if the prospect of an irrefutable answer terrifies him.  Perhaps especially then. 

They ride until they reach the bank of a stream and there, just up past the mud where the bank turns solid, they dismount.  The weight of the knight’s presence behind him is palpable, enormous even before his hands settle to Jon’s shoulders. 

“ ‘s alright, my lord.  I can give you what you want.” 

His hands travel down, smoothing down Jon’s ribs like a caress to a wild thing set to flee and then they’re lower, farther, his right coming forward to cup big and hot between Jon’s legs.  There is no question as to what he wants after that, not with the way his body jolts as his cock is palmed, the way he hardens so quick his cheeks burn with embarrassment.  The knight chuckles, a vibration Jon can feel against his back.  He’s so on edge that even _that_ detail hits him, sends a shiver down his spine that makes his hips jerk. 

With a strong hand kneading at him and a man’s body pressed full against him from behind, he falls apart so fast he hardly knows it’s coming before it hits, only knows that his cock isn’t even out of his breeches and he’s gasping, humping desperately against the pressure like a dog as he comes.  His head spins, and he hardly notices he’s being guided to his knees until he’s there.  He leans forward to rest, the earth wonderfully solid and cool beneath his palms, and for a half second it grounds him, but then his breeches are yanked down to his thighs and there’s the breath of wind on his bare skin, chilling the damp of his softening cock. 

His throat tightens and he thinks _relax, you knew_ and _oh gods oh gods_ in the same breath.  Jon looks up, his vision for a moment ruined by sunlight before he blinks and refocuses on the man who seems to tower over him.  His breeches are unlaced, cock out and it can’t be overlarge, it can’t be, but it looks enormous, all red and thick and bobbing out so much farther than Jon’s own.  Jon swallows, realizes how widely he must be staring only when the knight crouches down to rest a hand heavy against the back of Jon’s neck. 

“You’re well close enough to a man grown for me to make a proper man of you, but if I’m to do that, you’ll need to get that look off your face.  Men like us, we’re still men, Jon.”  The use of his name would be jarring, even without the rough care that gentles his tongue.  “Don’t be afraid.” 

Jon’s fingers clench through the leaves, pressing down until he feels dirt under his nails, until he looks down to see the curve of his knuckles gone white and strong.  “I’m not.”  Yet he hears it in his breathlessness, in something too damn close to a quiver.

“The way I see—“

“I’m _not_.”  It’s the challenge of it, perhaps, but at the moment he forces his head up and their eyes meet, he feels stronger than he has in ages.  Almost a griffin again. 

The knight pets down his spine, slaps lightly against his ass.  “Good man; I’d heard you had quite the spirit.” 

At a better moment, Jon might wonder _where_ he’d heard, if his lord father was proud of him, if the master at arms had talked of his skill with a blade.  Just then, he can think of nothing but the creak of leather as the knight shifts, the soft pop as a flask uncorks. 

“I’ll tell you now, this’ll hurt.” 

Jon closes his eyes. 

The oil is cold and the fingers in his ass are rough and greedy and still his cock begins to stir and the pad of a finger hits something inside that makes him hot from thighs to chest, makes him cry out.  It’s too brief, too slight for him to get more than a taste and then the hand is gone and he smells the oil, hears a wet sound of palm on cock and then he’s breached, biting his lip so hard it’s a damn wonder he doesn’t bite it through. 

The knight’s cock feels even thicker than it looked and the notion of _hurt_ seems an understatement when he’s clearly being split in two, but he’s being fucked, and isn’t this what he wanted? 

The pain is blinding until after time beyond count it isn’t, until he slides gradually out of its white heat enough to feel his arms and thighs shaking, to feel dampness on his cheeks and realize that beneath the pain, there’s a fullness his body instinctively pushes into, an itch inside of him that feels half touched and demands to be scratched.  Startled, he moans, a confused comingling of pleasure and pain.  His cock is starting to fill, to hang heavy and arch toward his stomach and he hardly knows what to do with himself, torn between curling in to thrust and pushing back to be taken. 

Before he can figure it out, the knight spills into him with a grunt, his seed a hot wet rush that Jon barely has time to realize he likes before the man finishes pulsing and pulls out.  Empty, Jon’s hole flutters painfully and he’s a mess of oil and come; he can feel it dripping down his thighs.  He’s a man fucked now, for whatever that’s worth.  The proof of all he already knew is in the weight of his cock, still hard, still wanting even as he aches. 

Jon catches his breath until he hears the knight pissing noisily into the leaves far to the right.  He stands on legs that feel at first colt weak and goes half-dressed to the stream, splashes himself with water so cold he hopes it might dull a little of the pain. 

Like most hopes, his are largely dashed.  The ride back is agony and yet he holds his seat, rides into the courtyard of Griffin’s Roost with his head held high.  He’s a man now; his pains are no one’s business but his own. 

\-------

In King’s Landing, he learns there are, in fact, men like him everywhere.  As a child, such knowledge would have seemed startlingly enormous but as he comes to manhood in the capitol, it’s almost lost in the jumble of all else he learns. 

He hates the smells and high walls of the city almost as soon as he enters it, misses open land and fresh air but they’re easy to forget when he’s brought before the prince.  Those of the blood of the dragon are tall and Jon’s still growing, but he stands tall as he can while Rhaegar looks him over.  His armor is heavy and he’s tired from the long days of travel so close behind him, tired from displaying his skill in a fight for the prince’s sake, but it all slides from his shoulders like rain when Rhaegar smiles at him.  The man’s more beautiful than any he’s ever seen, but it’s not only that, it _isn’t_ , it’s the way Rhaegar looks at him almost like an equal, like a worthy opponent, like a friend he’s known for ages rather than minutes. 

Part of him might know then but it isn’t until months and years pass and he’s in the godswood holding a book that Rhaegar gave him that the truth bears heavy on his chest like weighted sand.  Beside a picture of a pale griffin stretched proud against the sands of Dorne Rhaegar has written in the margins in his flowing hand _I thought you’d like this part_ , and Jon is lost, so bound to this man that his throat nearly closes up. 

He is sixteen, a man grown and a man in love, and he tilts his head back to see blue sky through fluttering red weirwood leaves.  It’s beautiful, the _world_ is beautiful, and Jon lets a few of the words that burn on his tongue go free.

“You’ve never been my gods and I don’t know that you’re real, but I don’t know that the seven are, either.  If you’re still here, if you hear me, I swear to serve him all my life.  Give me that, and I’ll ask nothing else.”

\-------

The seven kingdoms love their Dragon Prince, but Jon loves Rhaegar Targaryen.  There is a difference, though he wonders in youthful arrogance sometimes if only he knows it.  The Dragon Prince enters the lists only often enough to keep the people wondering if he will, makes appearances in keeps and plays songs that keep them hanging on his every word.  Rhaegar goes to Summerhall and lies on the flagstones in the heat, comes home to play Jon songs of fire and smoke and sorrow.  They ride together and fight together and Jon has seen so much of him, earned his soft laughter and seen his fear. 

He heard once that no man ever knows another fully and maybe that’s true, but he is mapping Rhaegar in his mind and if he still never knows it all, no one could claim he didn’t try. 

He knows enough to see the resignation in the slope of his shoulders when Rhaegar leans back against crumbling stone and says in a voice of perfect calm, “It seems my father has made a match for me with Elia of Dorne.” 

They are in Summerhall, in a courtyard dappled with sunlight that suddenly seems cold as Jon reminds himself what he fool he is to hold impossible hopes.  Just days ago, he’d hardly been able to contain his euphoria at the thought that Rhaegar had asked him to come to this place where he so often takes no one.  Jon had been so damn proud of himself, he’d thought—

It doesn’t matter what he’d thought; it was foolish. 

Jon lays flat against the stone so he can look at the clouds rather than his silver prince, folds his arms behind his head and feels the heat radiate against his skin.  It’s nothing like the fire he’s felt off Rhaegar’s hands when they’ve grasped his after a good fight, but it’s comforting. 

“She is beautiful, my prince.” 

“She is that.”

“And yet you aren’t happy.”  He’s rarely been so bold and it terrifies him, makes him feel like his nerves are actually vibrating between muscle and skin.  His torment only lasts until he hears Rhaegar laugh, quick and quiet.

“You know me too well, Jon.”  

There is no apology he’d make for that, so he keeps his silence. 

“I had hoped…”  His words trail into a sigh and though he isn’t looking Jon can almost see his fingers sweeping through the grass that comes up between the stones, absently playing it to give his hands something to do.  “Do you believe anyone marries for love, or is it all politics?”

Jon’s heart skips and pounds, and he swallows.  “I don’t know.  My father didn’t.  It must happen, somewhere, but I’ve never seen it.” 

“Neither have I.  Love exists of that I’m sure, but in truth I wonder if it only ever falls on companions and family, if the rest isn’t hope and tales.” 

The way he’d said _companions_ echoes in Jon’s head, the velvet strength of his voice turned over in remembrance a dozen times before Jon finds his words.  “You don’t believe that, my prince.”  He murmurs, unwilling to fully jar the memory of Rhaegar’s last words from his ears.  Opening his eyes he blinks against the sun, turns his head so Rhaegar can see him smile.  “If you did, the prospect of marrying a pretty girl from Dorne wouldn’t trouble you.” 

The light in Rhaegar’s eyes flashes brilliant, an amused sparkle he treasures.  “Well said.  And what do you believe, Jon?” 

_I believe she isn’t worthy of you.  I believe she doesn’t know you and never will, and yet she will give you heirs.  Even if you ever were to look at me, I could never approach all she can do for you that I cannot but I hate her, I hate her, I hate her._

Jon wets his lips, focuses on the burn of hot stone against back of his hand.  “I believe the world is full of more than we know.  And that I’d sooner marry a Dornish woman than a Lannister.” 

They stay two weeks at Summerhall, and it’s so good Jon almost forgets why they’ve come, even with Rhaegar’s mood sliding here and there to places so dark Jon can only sit in his shadow.  Riding back to King’s Landing he can do nothing _but_ remember, and though they go together to the Red Keep it’s not long before Jon slips away.  As evening falls the castle feasts in honor of the impending wedding, and Jon prowls the dark streets until he finds a place he knows is discreet enough for his needs. 

He fucks a boy a little older than he was the first time he was taken, and he does his best to reduce himself to sensation, tight heat around his cock and the sound of breathy moans he’s not sure he’s skilled enough to be earning.  He tries, but when it’s done all he can think of is Summerhall, and the closest thing to a declaration of love from the man who holds him heart and soul that he’s ever like to get. 

Whatever the manner, Rhaegar loves him; he knows it now for certain.  Is that not more than he ever asked for?  Did he not swear before the gods that he’d serve him all his days with the expectation of less? 

In the next room a girl screams, fake and gaudy, and the boy beside him rubs tentatively against his hip, still hard, still doing his job. 

“How would you like to finish me, milord?  Or d’you want to wait and fuck me again?  We’ve got time; you paid—“

“I know.”  He knows what he paid, and he doesn’t care to hear it again.  He reaches between the boys legs, hefts his cock halfheartedly.  It’s not large enough, yet; it wouldn’t feel right and besides, he’s not sure he wants…he’s not sure what he wants.  He rolls over to pin the boy beneath him, spreads his legs with a well-placed thigh.  “Go on.  Rut until you’re finished.” 

If that’s not enough to get his cock up again, he’ll let the boy suck him until he is.  Maybe if he fucks again, this time his mind will go blank. 

\-------

As Rhaegar beds his bride Jon is floors below them, separated from his prince and _her_ by mortar and stone.  He’d like to think there’s something sadly poetic about that, though he can’t seem to phrase it just right to find exactly what it is.  Rhaegar could, he knows; he’d set it to song.  He knows, too, that he’s as drunk as he’s ever been, flushed hot with wine and arousal and spread out on Oberyn Martell’s bed. 

He hadn’t planned for this to happen, but he can’t say he hadn’t heard of Oberyn’s reputation, either.  Drunk and honest, he also can’t tell himself that there isn’t a small part of him that hopes Rhaegar may see something in the way Oberyn looks at him after this, a look too searching or too long and know exactly how much of him the Viper’s had.  Gods, he gets older and older and still he’s such a damn fool; something in him always wants to believe the impossible.  If he knew for certain it’d give him the chance to see jealousy in Rhaegar’s eyes, he’d fuck the whole damn court. 

“It’s a sad thing, you know.”  Oberyn’s hands are sliding up the inside of his thighs as he speaks, lithe and sure and unhurried. 

Jon stirs enough to give something between a grunt and a hum in response, hands clumsily grasping at Oberyn’s shoulders. 

“To feel you so tense.  You don’t share your bed often do you, Lord Connington?”

“Never shared my bed at all.”  He mutters, half slurred and distracted; the truth comes too easy.  He’s fucked and been fucked, but never without a rush or an exchange of coin or both, more often both.  The thought of anything else, of nights full of the way Oberyn is touching him now with soft strokes aimed only to please is utterly foreign.  Foreign, and almost too painfully so.  He doesn’t live in Dorne, after all.  This cannot be his future.   

Oberyn slithers up his body with determined force, his hard cock rubbing teasingly against the hair on Jon’s chest as Oberyn leans down to kiss his neck.  “Even sadder.  Still, we will fix it.”  The touch of his lips is marvelous, a delicious buzz that Jon is sure he wants to chase right up until he catches him.  He turns his head to meet Oberyn in a kiss that tastes of spice and Dornish wine and it’s incredible, from the flick of his tongue to the curve of his hand against Jon’s jaw.  Incredible and intimate, and it’s that very intimacy that even drunk off his ass, Jon can’t bear.  He can give anyone his cock and his ass; he learned that early.  _This_ is different, less a means to an end than a drawn out basking in another, full of mingled breath and words and touches for the sake of touch alone. 

He’s still doing it, still kissing Oberyn deep and desperate and hells, part of him _craves_ it but there’s a throbbing ache behind his ribs that tells him he would rather give so much of himself to Rhaegar alone.  Rhaegar, who knows him better than any other, who he’s imagined kissing like this more times than he could ever count. 

The discrepancy hurts, but the knowledge of exactly where Rhaegar is at the moment hurts even more, enough to keep him from turning away.  instead he buries his fingers into Oberyn’s too short hair and moan hungrily into his mouth as if he has no doubts. 

Oberyn is fluid, skilled as a lover in ways Jon has never experienced.  The Viper doesn’t even begin to take him until he’s so eager and slick with oil that Jon’s fucking himself on the man’s fingers, panting and trembling.  He’s so close to the edge he comes as soon as there’s a cock filling him up; if he weren’t so drunk, he might have it in him to be embarrassed.  Tomorrow maybe he will be, but for the moment Oberyn is chuckling against his throat, nipping skin as he thrusts, murmuring in broken stretches of how tight he is, how beautiful he looked falling apart.  He’s never seen himself that way, maybe handsome in a rugged way but Rhaegar, Rhaegar is beautiful, his silver prince with eyes like no other. 

Drunk and hazy with orgasm he doesn’t notice when Oberyn’s close, only catches on when he grips hard at Jon’s hip, grinding into him, filling him up.  His arms are heavy but he closes them around Oberyn’s back, holds him there until he trails off from mouthing at Jon’s neck and collarbone into a contented sigh. 

They roll apart, and Oberyn turns right back to press against him, strokes his chest and kisses his shoulder.  “If I were to guess, he has never had you.”

It isn’t actually a question, and Jon’s not sure if it’s more that or the statement itself that shoots a bolt into his gut that’s either fear or panic.  Whatever it is it pushes him to rise, but he doesn’t make it more than an inch before Oberyn’s hand is pressing firm against his breastbone, holding him steady.

“No, no, no.  You misunderstand; Elia wouldn’t mind.  We are Dornish; we know you don’t often marry for love.  Love you choose; marriage you plan.  Now, if she loved him…”  _That_ would be a different matter; the message is clear enough and yet Jon feels no barb in it.  Perhaps because there isn’t one in truth, perhaps because that is the manner of a viper—strike smooth as silk, and your prey will never know they’re bitten.   Oberyn’s thumb smoothes across his skin, shockingly gentle.  If he’s been bitten, it’s with impressive stealth indeed.  “But you haven’t told him, have you?”

_No, because he wouldn’t—I couldn’t—_

_No, because he would send me away._

_No, because if he chose me it could ruin his life._

_No, because I am a coward._

Jon shuts his eyes against the dizzying spin of too much wine, properly catching up to him in his stillness.  He breathes, and waits, and when Oberyn says nothing more he unclenches his jaw. 

“This can never happen again.”  It’s more slurred than he wishes it was, more exhausted, but Oberyn hears him all the same; Jon knows instantly when he feels his chest expand on a heavy sigh. 

“As you say.” 

\-------

There is song in the ring of steel; Jon has argued as much to Rhaegar before.  Rhaegar hears the rhythm of it, but not the music; for him, music is in his harp, in the deft pluck of fingers and well sung melodies.  Jon hears both, and he wonders sometimes what that says.  (And yet, deep down he feels he knows already—no matter the words of his house, there is a thirst for blood in Jon that Rhaegar doesn’t share.  When riled Jon is vicious; Rhaegar is steady.) 

Beyond the music of steel itself, there is nothing to him like the intricate weave he and Rhaegar form sparring together.  It’s a dance, one he cherishes all the more as it’s the only kind he’d ever be permitted.  The sidestep around each other, darting in and out of each other’s space with the skill of long friends.  They learned each other’s tricks when they were boys, adapted to suit reach of arm and the risks each of them were like to take.  It is hard, now, to ever declare a winner between the two of them.  The sessions do them good all the same, drawing Rhaegar from his blacker moods sometimes far enough that whatever had come over him seems to vanish altogether. 

Today, they’re not through yet and he’s already smiling, already laughing when he manages to slip in close and slap the flat of his blade against Jon’s forearm. 

“Watch your right, Jon; if I were an enemy I’d have taken your arm.”

“If you were an enemy, your highness, I’d have already taken your head.”

“There’s a grand proposal.”

“Not so grand if I can back it up.”  Jon smirks, feints high before putting all his strength into shifting direction, sweeping low and ghosting his sword against the back of Rhaegar’s knee just hard enough for the blunted edge to knock him off balance.  He recovers but only just, throws his weight back into the motion and catches himself by back pedaling out of Jon’s reach.  He’s clever and quick, but Jon could have had him if he’d pulled a little harder, and he can’t help but say so.  “Almost had you on your back there.  Am I wearing you down?” 

“Perhaps.  Is that your aim?”  He’s not grinning as he says it, no overt signs as Jon might judge on other men, but there’s something teasing about the lilt of his words, a light in those indigo eyes that Jon’s seen before and ever looked away from.  If Rhaegar was looking at anyone else, Jon knows what he’d think.

He hardly knows how to answer, so thoroughly shaken that his parry is off by half second, maybe more.  Either way, it’s enough to defeat him.  His counter isn’t strong enough and Rhaegar moves quickly, presses back at just the right angle to twist his wrist and make him drop the blade.  He could stop there, _should_ stop there because he’s won, there’s no denying it and yet he keeps moving, drives Jon back until his back hits red brick and he’s right up in Jon’s space, steel against his chest.  There is fire in his eyes and Jon shivers, reaches back to further ground himself with his palms to the wall. 

“And now I have you.  Distraction is death, you know.”  As ever, Rhaegar is a dizzying mystery, his voice too soft, too soothing for the solid press of blade just over Jon’s heart.  He wonders if Rhaegar can feel its beat, rapid with terror and want and hope. 

“Yes.”  He knows; he’s known all his life.  He can never look too long, give away too much.  He has to master himself more than other men, watch eyes and his hands and his words and still, it can’t have been enough can it because Rhaegar is looking at him like he _knows_ , like he—

Truth be told, there is a part of him that knows they’ve been close to this before or at least, there are pieces of him that have been almost certain of it.  Moments fighting like this when they were young, an afternoon of riding when they shared a horse, the trip to Summerhall just last year when it seemed something hovered in the air between them fragile as spun glass.  Always, always he’s told himself it was in his own mind, in hope, an impossibility and yet, Rhaegar hasn’t stopped staring him down and if anything, his eyes burn darker and hotter than Jon’s ever seen them.

Fire and blood indeed. 

“Do you yield?”  There is no denying the pitch of his voice, low and deep and dark. 

Jon shuts his eyes, feels his breath coming quicker though he can’t seem to stop it.  He can feel his cock stiffening; maybe it’s the rush of blood that’s leaving him dizzy.  “Your highness—“

“Look at me, Jon.” 

He can’t, seven hells, he _can’t_.  “I’ll not have your pity.”  The rasp of his whisper sounds almost harsh in his fear, like another man entirely.  “I’d do much for you, but I won’t—“

“It’s not pity I offer.” 

The dizzying rush in his head stops; for all Jon knows, time itself might as well have stopped around them.  They’re in the bloody keep and even empty as this old courtyard they often use is anyone could happen on them here, anyone at all, but when Jon opens his eyes to look into Rhaegar’s he feels trapped in them, isolated from the holdfast and King’s Landing and the whole damn world. 

Rhaegar’s free hand settles against his neck, hot and oh so careful, as if he waits for Jon to shake him off.  “I’ll ask again—do you yield?” 

Jon tilts his head back to bare his throat, an instinct immediately rewarded by the slow drag of Rhaegar’s thumb beneath his chin.  “I do.”  His throat’s dry and he’s damn near shaking but it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter at all because none of this, absolutely none of it can be real. 

The walk back to Rhaegar’s room is surreal, the setting sun painting Maegor’s Holdfast colors Jon would swear he’s never seen, though the novelty of those sights is nothing on what he feels as Rhaegar press him to the closing door and mouths hungrily at his throat. 

If this is a dream, he will take it; gods, he’ll take it. 

He bites his lip bloody, only stops when Rhaegar’s body presses full against his and he can feel the swell of the prince’s cock against his thigh, already half hard at least.  Desperate want overwhelms his doubt, goads him to disentangle just enough to drop to his knees.  He’s dizzy, overeager, and he hasn’t sucked a man off since he was young but he can think only that dream or no, for a moment at least he wants Rhaegar so drunk with pleasure he won’t forget, so lost in Jon he won’t change his mind.  (And there is a part of him too, quiet and slinking, that whispers _she won’t have done this for him, not his proper lady; she takes him rarely enough into her bed as it is_ )

Rhaegar’s shaft is longer than his own, not quite as thick but beautiful, proud and curving when Jon releases it from his breeches.  He moans at the sight, guides it to his lips with rough fingers and sucks down more than he can take.  He gags, doesn’t care because Rhaegar is cursing, panting, his long fingers twisting into Jon’s hair. 

He could hold on and fuck himself down Jon’s throat for all Jon cares but he doesn’t, only uses his grip to hold on, an anchor against the pleasure and a chance to maintain contact.  His restraint is a kindness Jon wouldn’t have expected or asked for and for a moment, he’s reminded of the night with Oberyn he remembers only in snatches.  It may be a sad thing how unaccustomed to encounters like this he’s been, but if it only makes him appreciate Rhaegar all the more, he can’t regret it. 

He’s sloppy, out of practice and not overly skilled to begin with but his mouth is watering with strain and desire, leaving Rhaegar’s cock so slick it helps him work it just a little deeper.  He’s so lost in the act itself, in the taste of Rhaegar and the weight on his tongue that he’s slow to notice the movements of his own hips, the way they jerk forward desperate for friction. He reaches out and takes hold of Rhaegar’s thighs, and the sound that leaves his throat as he kneads at them is too high to be anything but a whine. 

Rhaegar’s hands are all over everything he can reach, raking through his hair and tugging at his shirt, squeezing at the back of his neck as he murmurs Jon’s name between breaths, full of awe and lust.  Jon can feel liquid starting to dribble from Rhaegar’s cock onto the back of his tongue and he moans, pulls back so he can suckle hard and thirstily.  He loves the bitter salt taste of him, loves the way he’s rewarded for his efforts with Rhaegar’s thumb digging in to the base of his skull.  A spurt of seed slides down Jon’s tongue and Rhaegar cries out, sharp and clear though it’s chased with something in High Valyrian Jon doesn’t know.  It’s beautiful, gods it’s beautiful and it’s the end of him, easy. 

Jon comes in his breeches, utterly untouched, and somewhere between his frantic grasps at Rhaegar’s thighs and the strung out sounds bubbling from his throat, Rhaegar doesn’t hold out either.  He spends himself into the heat of Jon’s mouth, finally losing control enough to thrust, come slicking his way until the head of his cock bumps against the back of Jon’s throat.  Limp with orgasm, Jon takes it, lets his jaw go slack enough to keep him from gagging until Rhaegar draws back. 

Without a fire the room has gone dim in the twilight and Rhaegar stands like a shadow before him, tall and dark though he’s still solid enough to hold Jon up when he sags forward, his cheek resting against the inside of his thigh.  Rhaegar’s hand pets against his hair, a caress so gentle Jon’s breath hitches beneath it. 

“Do you still doubt me, my loyal griffin?” 

Jon breathes in the scent of sex and sweat, nuzzles closer and shuts his eyes.  “I hardly know.  Dreams like this, think it’s common to wake up once you’ve gotten off.” 

He feels the vibration of Rhaegar’s laugh, hums in pleasure when Rhaegar scratches lightly at his scalp.  “If I’m to have you believe me, it seems I must take care of your cock myself next time; is that it?”

 _Next time_.  Next time, like a foregone conclusion, so easily said when Jon hasn’t even begun to wrap his mind around this. 

If he _is_ dreaming, if the gods are good he’ll die before he’s unfortunate enough to wake from this.     

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to add that four parts is my estimate for this...it may shift to three or five; I'm not finished yet so I'm not quite sure but I'm working on this every day so I should know soon.


	2. II. Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rhaenys is born, Elia speaks to Jon, and Rhaegar leaves no doubts that Jon is his paramour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This may turn out to be a little longer than I originally intended, just because I'm writing a few more scenes than I had at first planned and this chapter didn't' go as far as I meant it to...however, it seemed good to stop it here because that last scene felt right as a place to pause, and also because it's been too many days since I told you guys you'd get a new chapter lmao 
> 
> 2\. Most importantly, I can't say thank you enough for how happy it made me to see people commenting on this. I wanted to write this story because I loved the idea, and I didn't expect to hear from hardly anyone. Every single one of you made me so, so happy; I promise. Thank you, and I hope you keep enjoying this story <3

The knock on the door comes with Jon’s hand hovering just over steaming water, heat rising to radiate against his palm.  His shirt’s half open already, right hand paused on its way down his chest, and for a moment he contemplates pretending he hasn’t heard.  If he was already in the tub, stretched out and likely _passed_ out, he might never notice. 

Duty nags him, the prospect of trouble dim but enough to matter.  Could be a riot in the streets, could be Elia’s begun to have the babe too early.  Could be, too, that he’s being asked to a damn meeting tomorrow afternoon of little import, but it’s not a chance he’s willing to take.  Sighing, Jon draws his hand back from the temptation of water and goes to the door.  He wrenches it open with his left, pulls it wide when he sees the white plate of the King’s Guard. 

“Ser Barristan.  Is his grace—“

“His grace is well; it’s the prince that sends for you, my lord.”  In his manner, Barristan betrays nothing but casual acceptance; his hand rests on the hilt of his sword out of habit though his eyes are calm, his wrist is limp.  Gods be good, it’s close enough to the hour of the wolf to make no difference, and yet Rhaegar sends for him openly, easily, as if—

As if he has no shame, and perhaps he doesn’t.  Gods know, he never shies away from keeping Jon close these days and he can’t pretend he doesn’t preen under it, he _can’t_ but Rhaegar hasn’t had his life.  He didn’t grow up the way Jon did, knowing and terrified; no, he grew up unquestioned, protected, never knowing there was a part of himself he might should fear. 

Or, as Rhaegar would say it, as he _has_ said it when Jon presses him for caution, Rhaegar grew up a dragon, and dragons lay claim to what is theirs.  Gods, the thought alone crossing his mind with Rhaegar’s voice to carry it is enough to make him feel hot, so eager for Rhaegar’s mouth on his he wets his lips before he can catch himself. 

Jon nods, follows his internal scramble for some sort of cover by reaching over for the sword belt he knows he left hanging by the door.  “Just a moment and—“

“There’s no need for that; there’s no trouble.  His highness only wants to see you.  I believe it’s in regards to the training you did with the guard this afternoon.”  And yet, there’s a glimmer of something that Jon’d swear was humor in Barristan’s eyes.  He can’t have believed that ruse for half a second but there’s no revulsion, no intrusive curiosity, only the look in his eyes and a softness around his lips that could well be the start of a smile. 

Jon swallows, settles the sword belt back onto its nail.  “Very well.  As the prince asks.” 

Barristan inclines his head, waits at ease for Jon until he sets off down the hall.  Barristan follows then almost at his side, only just behind, almost as if he’s a mark to protect, as if he’s a member of the household proper.  Before it can settle, Jon chases that thought away.  They walk in silence to the clink of mail and plate, and though it’s not likely as uncomfortable as Jon feels it should be, there’s a pit in his stomach that refuses to vanish entirely, a gnawing fear that lingers even when the reach the royal apartments and his hand is on the latch of Rhaegar’s door. 

“Thank you, Ser Barristan, I’m sure—“

“I’ve kept the secrets of two kings, you know.”  Barristan’s voice is soft.  Jon studies the woodgrain rather than look back.  “If the Warrior’s willing to keep me strong, I’ll serve the prince when he takes the throne one day.  More than once I’ve had to shield a shameful truth to keep my vows, but never for our prince Rhaegar.  Not now, and I’m like to think I never will.  He’s not that sort of man.  Wouldn’t you say, my lord?” 

He’s frozen with the shock of acceptance, unlooked for and so new he has no response that comes to mind, nothing other than a too long stretch of silence before he goads his throat to working.  “I would indeed, ser.”  There’s a part of him that would love to see Barristan’s face then, but it’s not strong enough.  He pushes the door open without turning, slips smoothly into a room he knows as well as his own and bolts the door behind him with a slide of his hand. 

“I can hardly believe I had to send for you.  I was so sure you’d be here.”  Rhaegar waits for him in a chair by the fire, white silk shirt open to bare his chest, breeches on though even at a glance they look loose on his hips.  He’s a damned vision, but Jon won’t give him the satisfaction of knowing that right off.  He’s capable of holding out a little, after all.  Seconds, at least. 

“Seven hells, I can’t believe you sent for me at all!  Not that I think Barristan will talk, I grant you, but—“

Rhaegar rises with breathtaking fluidity, takes the opportunity of Jon’s sudden silence to close the distance between them.  His hands pick up where Jon’s had left off in opening his shirt though he doesn’t bother with the ties, just worms his way through the gap until his palms can press to Jon’s chest.   “I realize you can’t see yourself, Jon, but do you have idea what I’ve been through watching you in the yard all afternoon?”

No, not really, but if Rhaegar keeps rubbing his chest like that, he’ll listen, though he can’t promise to retain any of it.  He opens his mouth to say so but Rhaegar’s so damned close that when he leans forward, it’s easier just to kiss him.  The prince’s mouth is immediately open to him and Jon delves after his tongue eagerly, reaches out to grip his waist hard when Rhaegar moans at the intrusion.  It’s a deep, heady sound, the kind that Jon would expect to come after weeks without rather than days.  The jolt that thought sends to Jon’s cock is intense, overpowering.  He growls, tears his mouth away from his dragon’s mouth to nip along his jaw and down his neck, laving his tongue against his pulse.  It’s not only dragons, after all, that are possessive of their claims.  Jon is frequently torn, half unable to believe how much Rhaegar desires him even when he sees it, half mad with jealousy at the thought that he can’t drag Rhaegar off and wed him on the bloody steps of Baelor. 

Here and there, he marvels at the fact that so close behind in his past the _impossible_ fantasy of Rhaegar’s love had seemed an absolute end to his troubles rather than a path full of them.  Anything can seem easy when there’s no proper expectation of its existence.  (And yet, every time he has those thoughts, he rushes to quiet them, to mutter in his mind at the old gods and whoever else might be listening that he isn’t complaining, _fuck_ he isn’t.  He’ll take every hardship; he’ll take everything.  Now that he’s had this, a life where he can’t come to this room and kiss Rhaegar like he is right now isn’t one he’d ever want to live.  From some acts, there is no going back.) 

“And what have I put you through, my prince?  If I gave offense—“

“You haven’t yet, though if you don’t fuck me soon you might.”  He’s breathless, his questing hands slipping from the front of Jon’s shirt to ride up the back and pull him closer, and Jon can’t help but laugh against his throat. 

His hands shift down Rhaegar’s hips, thumbs rubbing at the cut of muscle just along his hipbones before Jon takes them lower to grope at his ass.  “When I was your squire, I seem to recall you trying to teach me patience.”

“And I seem to recall despairing that it didn’t take; I must have been mistaken.  Still I know I never intended—“  Rhaegar breaks off in a groan as Jon kneads at him just a little more firmly, and he turns to seek a kiss Jon willingly grants him.  The first is wet and uncontrolled, those that follow only a little more structured, punctuated by nips with no blood drawn and soft sounds of pleasure that mingle between them both.  When Rhaegar picks up his thread of conversation again, Jon can feel every word spoken against his lips.  “You weren’t meant to put the lesson to work as a damned tease.”

Jon hauls his hips close, lets Rhaegar feel the line of his cock.  For a moment, he wonders if it might be worth it to properly tease him, how beautiful Rhaegar might look full of fire and need, grappling with him to sink down on his cock.  Jon hums against the corner of Rhaegar’s mouth and kisses him again.  “I’ll not tease you.  I’ve been yours since I came to King’s Landing; you can have me however you like.” 

However, whenever.  He’s not picky, can’t imagine he ever could be in this. 

“Then take me.  I’ve been waiting.”  Breathy and soft as they are there’s something hard and brazen in his words, enough that Jon’s curiosity sparks and sets his hands searching.  They slide easily enough past the waist of his breeches, and it’s not long then before he feels the traces of oil.  _Gods_ he’s not just been waiting, he’s been getting himself ready, maybe leaning over that chair by the fire as he fingered himself open. 

That image kills the last of his restraint, forcefully. 

He gets Rhaegar undressed in a flurry of rough movement, hands overlapping and tugging.  For Jon his own clothes are an afterthought, only registered when he feels Rhaegar jerking with impatient but still nimble fingers at the ties on his shirt.  He lets him finish, follow through and attack the laces on his breeches as well even though it’s hard to let him, hard not to either push his hands away and do it faster or beg for those clever fingers around his cock. 

He takes Rhaegar on his back because Rhaegar clings to him, and though he’s sore already and the angle puts more strain on his thighs and chest, it’s worth it.  There’s something to be said for the high of letting Rhaegar fuck him quick and hard from behind, but for Jon there’s more in this, in the needy drag of Rhaegar’s hands up his spine, in the way Rhaegar keens and clenches around his cock when Jon bites down against his collarbone.  It’s no secret that Rhaegar’s a romantic in his own way, but the more Jon learns about himself the more he realizes so is he.  It’s why even drunk it hurt him to kiss Oberyn, why his heart skips when Rhaegar gropes for the back of his neck to drag Jon’s mouth back to his even though he’s panting. 

Jon’s never heard of a singer who writes of love the way he knows it, spoken through touch and acceptance and the look in Rhaegar’s eyes on their last trip to Griffin’s Roost, when he’d looked out over lands that would someday be Jon’s and called them beautiful though it was Jon he looked at most.  Perhaps someday, Rhaegar will put the two of them to song for him.  He’d like that. 

When he sees Rhaegar’s end approaching in the long line of his neck thrown back, in the way he turns his head to bite at the pillow, Jon takes his leaking cock in his hand and finishes him quickly, thrusting shallow and firm the way he likes until his body goes lax.  He winds his long arms around Jon’s shoulders, nuzzles close to whisper against his ear, “Go on, Jon.  Make me yours.” 

Afterward, Rhaegar draws him out of bed to lay on the rug by the fire.  As hot as his body always seems to run he never tires of seeking more of it out; it draws him like the pull of the shore on the sea, closer and closer until Jon’s half sure someday he’ll reach out and dance his fingertips through the flames.  For Jon it’s almost too close,  he’s hot and tired and still dirty from a day of exhausting work putting the guard to the test.  He knows Barristan’s right outside the door, knows he had to have heard Rhaegar’s cries and even if he hadn’t, if he falls asleep here there’ll be no quelling the servants talk when they find them curled naked like this tomorrow. 

He knows all of that and more, two dozen reasons at least to take his leave, but Rhaegar turns toward him and speaks the liquid warmth of old Valyria against his skin and Jon doesn’t have to ask what it means; he knows.  Against that, no point in favor of leaving can stand. 

Jon brushes a kiss against the fine silver hair at Rhaegar’s temple, drapes an arm over his waist to pull him in flush against his chest.  He falls asleep to the crackle of wood, and the uneven tempo of Rhaegar’s breath against his neck. 

\-------

Over a week after Elia has the child, the grand maester says she’s still to keep to her bed.  By all the man told Rhaegar, she’ll not be well enough to be up and about for weeks to come at the least.  Given that certainty, Jon had been so sure he could come see the child today with Elia safely tucked away in the next room, but really, he should have known. 

Frailty or no, Elia is a princess of Dorne, and she can only be so far constrained, even for her own good. 

Jon freezes when he sees her at the window, leaning heavily against the wall in a shift so thin it drapes over her like gauze.  She’s beautiful, undoubtedly, though in Jon’s eyes it’s more like to the beauty of a flower or a young doe, distanced, aesthetic.  As to how Rhaegar sees her, he isn’t sure.  Jon’s jaw clenches, and he looks away before he can think too hard on the prospect. 

“My lady, I must beg pardon; I thought—“

“That I would be in bed?  You’re not wrong, ser; I should be, but I get restless sometimes in the mornings.”  Elia turns to smile at him over her shoulder, a look so warm it makes his skin crawl.  If she knew—She _must_ know pieces at least, but if she knew how jealous he was of her, how he’d take her place in heartbeat if he could’ve ever managed it…knowing that much, surely she wouldn’t still be able to look at him like that. 

Jon cleared his throat.  “I understand.  I had only come to see the little girl, but I can—“

“You can retreat and come back later if you like, or you can come in and stop standing in the door.  If Rhaegar told you to come here now, he’d know there’s at least a chance you’d see me.  Do what you will, but I believe he thinks it’s time you and I talked, Lord Connington.” 

There’s little he wants less, but he hardly sees a graceful way out.  Besides, it _was_ Rhaegar who gave him the time, and she has a fair point.  If he wants them to speak, he won’t rest until it happens.  Jon has seen his determination, on more than one front.  Jon gives in, closes the door and takes his time latching it.  He does his best to keep the sigh that leaves his lips when he finishes from sounding too labored, too apprehensive. 

Talking to her won’t kill him.  (Neither will it change the fact that she can take Rhaegar’s side openly and he can’t, but in the spirit of an attempt at conversation, he’ll keep that to himself.) 

The crib is to the right, close to the wall below a beautiful tapestry of Meraxes in flight, but Jon doesn’t look too long.  If he has to do this first he’ll do it, and when he first sees Rhaegar’s daughter he’ll do it undistracted.  As sure and decided as he is, it’s still hard to walk past her, hard to be so full of eager curiosity only to quell it in favor of mild dread. 

Up close, Elia looks even more haggard than she had from a distance, wispy and weak with the soft skin below her eyes gone nearly black.  Little Rhaenys has taken much from her, it seems, but her smile hasn’t faded.  To tell the truth, Jon’s not sure he can remember a time he’s seen her that she _hasn’t_ smiled. 

“Some days, I miss the sunrise in Dorne so much I get up to watch it here.  I can never seem to remind myself it isn’t the same.  Have you ever seen Sunspear under the light of dawn?”

“I’ve never been fortunate enough to see Sunspear at all, my lady.”

“Now that _is_ a shame.  Perhaps we will all go when the little one and I are well enough for travel; it’s been long since I’ve been home, or so Oberyn says.  When a place and a person are so connected you can’t extricate them, it’s hard to be sure.  I may not have touched the sand for ages, but he makes it feel as if Dorne comes to me every time he visits.”  The warmth in her voice is an unmistakable caress, her accent folding just a little thicker around her brother’s name.   It’s reminiscent of the way Oberyn said hers, the way he says Rhaegar’s, and for the first time a question rises in his mind that likely should have been there ages since. 

He had reason enough to be drunk for Rhaegar’s wedding, so much so that he never questioned why exactly Oberyn was so willing to drink with him.  Jon leans against the opposite side of the window frame, looking away from King’s Landing laid out below them so he might study Elia.  “Will your brother come to the capital to see his niece?”

“Eventually?  Nothing would keep him from it, but that isn’t what you mean.  You ask if he knows she’s born, and the answer is no, he doesn’t.  I was tempted, immediately, but to tell him with I am so weak a walk to the window exhausts me for an entire day?  No; I’ll not frighten him.  Oberyn worries enough.” 

“Tell him only about the child; I’m sure—“

“He would know; he always does.  My little brother, he…”  She shakes her head slowly, a quiet laugh filling her hesitation.  “When I was young he once climbed into my room through the balcony when I had my door locked.  When I asked him how he knew I needed him, he said ‘Because you told me.’  Thirteen years old and already he knew me down to all I could ever say in silence.  He knew if I locked the world out, I’d still want him in there with me.”

“By all accounts your brother is quite the man.” 

“Including yours?”  Jon’s been set back on his heels worse before, but still something of his shock must be bleeding into his eyes or the clench of his fingers because Elia chooses then to turn fully to face him.  “Come, let us be honest with each other, Jon.  I know your secret; I would even if Rhaegar hid you better than he does because he told me long ago.  You are his paramour, and you need not look so frightened of the word.  There would be no shame in it in Dorne; you would be always at his right hand.” 

“We are not in Dorne, my lady.”  Instantly, he hates how sharp it sounds,  far sharper than she deserves for how easily she’s speaking to him of Rhaegar now.  It’s the discrepancy in the world she paints and the world they have that wounds him to strike, not her, but he can’t bring himself to say as much.  He can only hope she reads it in the way he bows his head, unwilling to face her.   

“We aren’t, but someday Rhaegar will be king, and if he brings a little more of our ways to the Iron Throne than many others have, no one will dare stand to question him.  As you might have noticed, they do it little enough already.  There are whispers about you, but they take it no further.  No one will risk the wrath of the great Dragon Prince and well they shouldn’t, for he _would_ fight for you, of that much I’m certain.”  

For a split second, he’s pleased, a flash fire of pleasure at the thought of Rhaegar standing up to claim him.  Whatever she says, however well she means, it’s a fantasy he squashes quickly.  Rhaegar would fight to save his life should the need arise he has no doubts; that’s enough. 

“Jon.”  There’s something so gentle about her he flinches, answers only with his silence.  “We may never be friends; we don’t have to be.  I can’t say I don’t wish it, but in that the rest is up to you.  I only wanted a chance to tell you we certainly aren’t enemies.  I know your secret, and I would give you mine, though you have it now, don’t you?  He says you’re clever, and I haven’t made it hard.” 

“Yes, I have it.”  One answer, and half a dozen questions.  “Forgive me, but from…from what I know of your brother—“

“I don’t presume to leash him; I love him as he is.  I’ve known him all his life.  More often than not, he’s only enjoying himself.  When it’s more than that, when he loves them, he doesn’t take away from his love for me to do it.  I know him too well to suspect otherwise.  He’s every bit as dangerous as all those who call him the Red Viper of Dorne would have you believe, but that fire in him burns in every direction.  You’ll not find a man more dangerous, but you won’t find one that loves more fiercely, either.” 

Not more fiercely, perhaps, but in tenaciousness he’d like to think he could give any man alive a challenge.  He can’t imagine an obstacle strong enough to tear him from Rhaegar’s side, and he doesn’t want to try.  For today, it’s enough to have on his mind that the woman he’s spent the last three years and more hating declares herself no enemy of his.  He wouldn’t have believed it months ago, would have sworn it’d change nothing even if she overlooked his place with Rhaegar but _this_ , this is more than offer to overlook and no matter how hard he reaches for it, Jon can feel his rage slipping through his fingers like crumbling string. 

Elia’s leaning so hard against the wall she looks seconds from sliding down it.  Jon shakes himself, reaches out to touch her arm with tentative fingers.  “My lady, you need to rest.  Let me see you to your room, please.” 

Her nod is tight, quick, and for the first time he notices slight lines at the corners of her eyes.  She hides it well, but her pain can’t be minor.  She probably hasn’t even taken milk of the poppy, likely left it off to be lucid enough for her walk to the window.  If he’d been thinking more clearly he’d have seen it sooner, perhaps, but for now the best he can do is catch her as she stumbles, anchor her against his chest when she sways even with his support. 

“I’m sorry, my legs are so weak, I can’t seem—“

“It’s alright; let me help you.”  After all, helping the helpless was somewhere in his vows he’s fairly sure.  Even if she hadn’t him feel like a damned ass, he’d still be bound to give her aid.  She makes it easy to help her, holding on obligingly as he lifts her as carefully as he can, cradling her to get her through the doorway and back across her chamber to a soft bed so enormous Jon’s never seen its equal.  As he sets her down she winces, and he’s apologized twice under his breath before he even means to speak.  “I’ll send for the maesters, I—Where are your maids?” 

Elia waves her hand, deliberate.  “Oh I sent them away, not for long, but they were keeping Rhaenys awake with their fussing over me and besides, I wanted to see the sun and speak with you, and they would not have condoned either.” 

Seeing in the glint of mischief in eyes so exhausted they shouldn’t be so bright, it’s not hard to imagine what Rhaegar sees in her.  He’s told Jon more than once she’s a better friend than he expected to have in a wife.  Jon was never sure if he should believe it, but now…

Jon tugs the blankets up and into her hands, smoothes them down when she holds on.  “You should rest.  There’s only so long you can convince your brother you’re still pregnant.” 

Her laugh is light and airy, a dancing thing.  She reaches for his hand, and he lets her take it.  “And you should wake Rhaenys up and hold her.  They’ll be waking her to nurse soon I’m sure; a little sooner won’t hurt her.”

“If I may, my lady, it would be an honor to meet her.” 

“As it was an honor to speak with you, Jon Connington.  My husband has chosen well, not that I suspected otherwise, you understand.”  She teases his as if they were already friends; that much he understands.  Little of any of this makes sense in ways he’s used to, in the vision he’d grown up with of how the world works, how lives mesh and function.  However little he understands it, it’s still real, still the reality he’s been given.  If it seems better than his expectations, maybe it proves only that he should have allowed himself to be more of an optimist. 

He takes his leave of Elia with his mind heavy, weighted with knowledge and questions that fly right out like a scattered flock the minute he reaches into the crib and lifts Rhaenys into his arms.  She’s lighter than her mother but darker than her father, rich brown hair and squinting eyes that look at him in color that’s all Elia’s but with an intensity that reminds him only of Rhaegar. 

Her waving hand latches onto his shirt, and Jon lets out the breath she stole. 

“Hello, little one.  Hello.”  For a moment her face scrunches up in confusion, as if she’s coming awake properly now and realizing this man who holds her is no familiar face, but Jon shushes her quickly, hikes her instinctively higher against him to settle her more firmly in the crook of his arm.  Maybe she smells Rhaegar on him, maybe she’s too tried to cry or maybe he’s not such a bad parent prospect as he thought because she doesn’t wail, only waves her little fist more insistently against his chest. 

Aside from his meeting with Rhaegar all those years ago, he’s never been so damn thoroughly captured, and he says so, whispers an oath more for her ears than any pricked ears of gods old or new. 

“Don’t cry; don’t cry.  I’ll look out for you.  I swear it.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...enjoy the happiness now; less happy things are coming, lol


	3. III. Harrenhal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in such a hurry to go to work but I love you guys!

There is a menace in Harrenhal that lingers; Jon is sure of it.  The soldiers blame the ghosts of the men melted down within ruined slag, but Jon’s less sure he believes them.  At least two dragons died here.  Rhaegar told him the stories long ago, even sang for him of the death of the great Vhagar above this keep.  If any creature were to ever have cause to haunt these ruins, it seems more likely to be her than a rabble of terrified man snuffed out in a blink. 

Whatever the culprit, Jon’s hated the place from the moment they arrived.  No amount of color in the tourney banners can take away from black walls that seem to suck in the light, no music overcome air too heavy to let it carry.  The whole place is a nightmare made solid, and from the first he’s counted the days until they’ll be riding off home. 

After the second day, his count narrows to include hours.  There are people everywhere; he hardly gets a moment alone with Rhaegar for half a minute much less any longer.  More often than not it’s a chore to even know where Rhaegar _is_ with the way he’s being pulled off in every direction, paraded before what feels like it must be every damn lord in the Seven Kingdoms.  In the day, at least.  Nights are different once the feasts die down, full of people shuffling tents or rooms and fucking and falling into drunken sleep and every night he waits for Rhaegar to come to him, to ask for him. 

The first six nights he falls asleep on his own, restless and failing to convince himself Rhaegar’s absence means nothing.  When Jon returns to his room on the seventh night to find Rhaegar draped sideways in a chair and watching the flames like a puzzle he’s almost solved, he’s so damned relieved that for the span of that moment at least, he forgets all about how many days they have left in Harrenhal. 

Jon goes to him without a word, leans down to wrap an arm around Rhaegar’s chest and press a kiss to his soft hair.  Rhaegar reaches up to hold his arm in place without looking, the movement so fluid Jon can’t help but smile.  They have the ease of familiar lovers with each other now, a development that’s both comforting and still new enough to be fascinating. 

“You were impressive today.  I was sure Arthur almost had you for a moment there.” 

“We need to talk, Jon.” 

Jon’s stomach flips, though he tries to hide how unsettled the distraction in Rhaegar’s tone leaves him, strives to keep his own words light.  “Not about Arthur Dayne, I’m assuming?” 

“What do you know of Lyanna Stark?” 

Jon pulls his arm away to take off his sword belt, fights to keep his jaw from clenching.  It’s absurd to be jealous; all he’s done is mention the girl.  He’s never given Jon a reason to doubt him, not once since they came together, and still there’s a voice in the back of his mind that whispers _is that where he’s been these last few days, with the Stark girl?_   He shouldn’t think it, shouldn’t even wonder, but he’s never felt good enough for Rhaegar.  Might be he never will.

Jon shakes himself, throws his blade onto the bed with just enough force that it rattles when it hits.  “Little enough.  I know she’s betrothed to Lord Baratheon, and that she’s Lord Stark’s only daughter.” 

“She is.  She also might be the best rider I’ve ever seen, Oberyn Martell and Willas Tyrell included.  She has a way with horses; I wouldn’t have believe it if I hadn’t seen her calm her mare with little more than a hand to her neck.” 

“Wanted to be a knight as a girl, did she?”  The more he learns about people, the less he realizes he knows.  As a boy he remembers being told what girls did and what they absolutely didn’t, but given all that _he_ did that he wasn’t supposed to it wasn’t so hard to imagine—

“Your liege lord, are the rumors about him as true as they seem?”

Jon blinks, half sure he’d be better off giving up trying to find the thread of this conversation.  “And which rumors might those be?”  He can imagine well enough, but he’s still got at least a scrap of old loyalty in him.  Shit as Robert may be at his position, he’s still Jon’s lord, and the Baratheons have long done well by his family.  He’ll speak all he knows if Rhaegar presses him, likely even be glad to get it off his chest, but he can’t fully shed his traces of lingering deference. 

Rhaegar, it seems, isn’t in the mood to trace around the subject.  Whatever the actual subject is.  He shifts and rises from the chair so quick Jon steps back to give him room, though Rhaegar turns first away from him as he starts to pace. 

“No half-truths, Jon; I need all of it.  I know well enough you’ve never liked the man but I always assumed it was personal and I didn’t care.  If there’s more you know of him than has reached me, I need to hear it.” 

“I assume it’s Lyanna Stark who’s brought on this sudden interest in Robert Baratheon?”  Even as he says it, he realizes there’s a barb to the words he hadn’t quite meant to point so fine.  His breath catches, and he wars with the fleeting thought that he should say something else, start answering the question at the least, but as he does Rhaegar turns to face him.  Given the look in his eyes, any chance he might have had to pretend he hadn’t spoken so sharply has vanished. 

“Whether it’s about Lyanna Stark or my father or the welfare of the Stormlands would that change your answer?”

He should say no and leave it there, he _knows_ he should but he’s too damned on edge.  He steps back, looks down and away, anywhere but at Rhaegar.  “Forgive me, your highness, I didn’t realize that was a command; I—“

“Oh you know damn well it isn’t, so you can drop the sycophantic shit right now.  I’ve always treated you as an equal and I’ve _never_ failed to give you respect so why is it so hard for you to give me any?”

“I—“  Rhaegar steps up to him so fast his battle instincts almost have him dodging before he catches himself, lets Rhaegar take hold of his chin none too gently and force his eyes up. 

“You _look at me_ ; if you’ve got something to say then say it.  I’m not here as your prince, I came to speak to the man who shares my life, so if you want to know if I’m fucking Lyanna Stark—“  Gods, he’s honestly hurt him; he can see it in the breath Rhaegar has to take as soon as he’s said it, feel it in the way his fingers clench against Jon’s chin.  “—you owe it to me to look me in the eye and ask.” 

The silence is harsh to the point of grating, but it’s a moment before Jon breaks it.  “You’re still my prince, even so.”  He’s not sure if it’ll soften him, not sure if it’ll make this worse or mean nothing at all, but it’s the first truth Jon’s sure he’s ready to speak.  Other than a slight lessening of the tension in Rhaegar’s jaw that may or may not have happened, nothing changes. 

_And are you fucking Lyanna Stark?_

Even merely imagined, it’s a struggle not to outwardly cringe as he pictures the way Rhaegar might look at him if he actually says it.  He’d be a liar to say he’s not tempted, but he’s not so consumed by jealousy as to miss the very valid point Rhaegar has.  They’ve done well together, but in the long run they’ll only go forward if they do it _together_.  If he can’t stop waiting for Rhaegar to close the door in his face, they won’t survive. 

Jon swallows, lets the deep purple of Rhaegar’s eyes steady him before he opens his mouth.  “Where have you been?  Why haven’t you come to me?  The last night I asked after you, the guards didn’t know where you’d gone.”  They’re the only questions he’s sure he wants to ask, though even they don’t sound quite right out loud. 

The hint of steel in Rhaegar’s grip fades, his touch softening until he slides his hand to pat familiar and comforting against Jon’s neck.  It’s too brief and then he’s gone, out of reach and pacing again.  “I was trying to tell you, but I suppose I could have come at it better than I did.  Here.”  At the table by the window he pauses to pour for them both from Jon’s bottle of wine, a dark Dornish red that looks near black in the dim light.  Jon takes his and drinks deep, lingers just close enough to Rhaegar that he can feel some trace of his warmth.  “I met Lyanna Stark the day we arrived.  We spoke, though not much more than pleasantries.  She had an excellent knowledge of horses and she asked after mine, I let her and her brother Eddard see him and I didn’t anticipate knowing her any better than that.”

The drink Rhaegar takes is short, though he closes his eyes as he swallows it down.  “I’ll give you the rest in as much detail as you like if you ask it, but what you have to understand first is that if I hadn’t seen her avoiding Robert, I’d never have known anything was wrong.  Not first, at any rate.” 

The spike of anger Jon feels for Robert then is stronger than he expected, damn the man.  The last time Jon saw him at a feast, he was so drunk he’d nearly dropped the serving girl he’d pulled into his lap.  He’s an oaf, unquestionably, but if it’s true that he’s ever crossed farther lines than Jon’s seen...

As one of his bannermen, the prospect is nauseating. 

Jon takes a deep draught of wine, shifts further into Rhaegar’s line of sight to lean against the wall before he speaks.  “She wouldn’t be the first woman to avoid Robert, though she might be the first with the ability to actually manage it.  He has a taste for servant girls, whores, farmer’s daughers; anyone available to him, really.  Word is, when he’s drunk enough their actual availability starts to matter to him less and less, but it can’t be proved.  No girl’s ever come forward to say he forced her into anything, but there’s enough talk of the possibility to be troubling, if you know who to ask.  You think the Stark girl’s been busy gathering?” 

“Oh she has, for months now.  Every chance she gets, she’s asked any maid or serving girl who’s so much as got a cousin who’s met him.  Suffice it to say none of the reports have pleased her, and she tells me his company the times she’s had it have only served to confirm her suspicions.”

“If she told you this around her brother—“

Rhaegar’s hand waved, cutting him off.  “Not in front of him; she’d never.  I find it hard to believe Eddard’s entirely ignorant of the sort of man his friend is but he does seem to have a certain willful blind spot where Robert’s concerned.  We were alone when she told me her fears about Robert, outside the keep.”  For a second Rhaegar seems lost in remembering, a fond smile and a half shake of his head leaving Jon more curious than he was already.  “I’d seen her in the afternoon leave her seats to avoid Robert, seen her deftly maneuver her way out of kissing his blade before he went into the melee.  It was only either chance or fate that I saw her again after that, riding so hard out of the stables her horse nearly took out me and Arthur both.  I looked up as she passed and the look on her face chilled me; I had to follow her.” 

“Had Robert—“

“No, no he’s not touched her, though it’s plain enough she’s frightened of him once you get her talking, and the girl’s not frightened of much.”  Rhaegar drains the last of cup, swallows heavily.  “She won’t marry him, Jon.  Either she has help getting out of this marriage, or she’ll keep herself out of it.”

There’s a haunted look in Rhaegar’s eyes that speaks volumes on what he might have seen.  Mindful of his memories, Jon presses lightly.  “I can assume she’s not planning to run away.” 

“No.  She’s not.  Though in the end, some version of—“  Rhaegar cuts himself off with an abrupt shake of his head, drops the cup to the table where it rattles to rest as he steps closer to Jon.  “You love your father lands; I know you do.”

He does, he always has, but what that has to do with Lyanna Stark is leagues beyond him.  _Unless_ —

“Rhaegar—“

“You are your father’s heir, but to keep a proper Connington in the the Roost you’ll need heirs of your own, a single heir at the least.”

Jon’s not sure whether he wants to laugh, listen, or lose his dinner; all sound appealing but Rhaegar’s talking too fast for his mind to settle on any proper response.  The words that spill from his mouth come undirected, half frantic.  “I don’t—I wasn’t—If this wasn’t madness, she still—“

“Is betrothed to Robert, I know, but I believe it _is_ possible, if we’re clever.”  Gods help them all, there’s a gleam in Rhaegar’s eyes so bright with determination it hurts.  Whatever scheme he’s hatched, how in the hells can Jon say no, even if it’s mad?  For a heartbeat, he wonders if Rhaegar truly _does_ know how thoroughly he’s got Jon ensnared; if he knows he could ask of him damn near anything at all and he’d pledge his life to it. 

Jon’s head throbs, and he reaches up to rub at his temple.  “Robert will never give her up.  The man’s stubborn as an ox.”  Or as a stag.  In him, the words of his house are rather too attuned to his pride. 

“He’ll give her up, with the right incentive.  If she has a child—“

“Your father would be forced by law to carry out justice against me; you _know_ that.”  That’s considering he even managed to get her with child at all, but that subject as yet remains blissfully moot. 

“Against you he’d expect reparation, but against me?”  The breath Jon sucks in must be audible; it has to be because Rhaegar pushes on, louder.  “Before you say anything it’s not about having her; I’ll swear you any oath you like it isn’t, but if I do this?  If _we_ do this, she has the child and she’ll be free to marry you after.  There might be some talk about you being the one to take her, but everyone at court already knows about us.  If anyone’s going to take a girl who’s had my child, I doubt it’ll shock anyone if it’s you.  She goes home to Griffin’s Roost and can visit King’s Landing after some time has passed.  She gets her freedom and her life and eventually you get an heir.  It all fits, Jon.  It _will_ work.” 

_No, it doesn’t fit._

_I thought I’d never marry; I thought I’d join your Kingsguard and give you everything for the rest of my days._

_I haven’t thought of heirs since I was a boy; they can have the Roost so long as I have you._

_Last time I tried to take a girl, I couldn’t even get it up for a damn second; how in the hells do you expect me to give her a child?_

His mind swims with a half dozen discarded bits and pieces he can’t bring himself to say.  He hardly realizes his eyes are closed until the touch of Rhaegar’s hand against his shoulder makes him jump, his eyes shooting open to find his prince closer than he was a moment ago.  The shine he’d had rattling off his plan has dimmed into something softer that it hurts to look at.  Jon can’t look away. 

“Tell me you refuse, and I’ll let it go.  I’ll not ask anything of you you won’t freely give, not ever, and certainly not this.”

“I have no say in the first part; if you—“

“You have say in all of it.  Elia I married because I had little choice.  If I could have asked for your hand instead, I’d have done it when I took you to Summerhall.  As it was, I almost told you how I felt about you then but I held my tongue.  I knew when I married Elia, you would either go home or stay in King’s Landing.  You stayed, and that told me everything I needed.” 

Of course he’d stayed; for him, there’d never been any thought of doing otherwise. 

Rhaegar’s arms wrap around him, across his shoulders and at his waist, and he lets himself be pulled in, lets Rhaegar rest his forehead against Jon’s.  He murmurs words that for all their exotic mystery Jon memorized the cadence of months ago, and for the first time they fail to properly warm him.  They seem to stick instead to every sore place he has, holding thorn tight and tearing. 

“You’ve never told me what that means.”  It comes out a little rougher than he intends, but it’s hard to blame himself for that when he can feel the rest, knows how acutely the pain is throbbing at every point of contact with Rhaegar he has. 

“Have I not?”  Unfazed, Rhaegar nuzzles against him, kisses either corner of his mouth before shifting up to kiss the bridge of his nose, the hollows below his eyes.  “Do you know why it is I always tell you I love you in High Valyrian?” 

With one of Rhaegar’s hands pressing so close to the pulse in his neck, Jon’s certain he can feel the way his heart jolts in answer. 

“Because it is mine.”  Rhaegar’s mouth is still travelling over him, brushing against his cheekbone before tracing down the line of his jaw.  “It is the language of my house, my people.  It is sacred, and more worthy of you for it than Westorosi could ever be.” 

Rhaegar’s breath is hot against his cheek, so close that it takes the barest turn of his head for Jon to kiss him.  For all Jon’s fierceness in that moment Rhaegar is slow, deliberate, moans so deeply at the curl of Jon’s tongue that Jon can feel it in his chest. 

Even as they break apart Rhaegar is pulling at him, stroking the hair at the back of his neck, fisting a hand in his shirt at the small of Jon’s back.  He almost says _you’re going to be the death of me_ , but the part of him that worries the sentiment is all too true makes him bite his tongue. 

“Why?”  It’s broad, but he’ll take any answer, any at all; from beginning to end, this mess is scattered full of potential questions.

“Because I believe I can help her, and if I can, I should.  What sort of king will be if I’m not the kind of man to help my people?” 

“And every other girl facing a bad marriage, should she come to you for a bastard too?” 

The huff of Rhaegar’s laughter against his lips is comforting.  “I read a lot as a boy, you know.”

“You read a lot now; gods, can you answer anything I ask without changing the subject?”

“Shhh.”  Rhaegar nips his lower lip, Jon’s breath catches, and he waits.  “I read once about a man who saw a knight tending a dog with a wounded paw.  He was using good herbs, the way the man saw it, and it rankled at him, drove him to ask the knight if he intended to waste all his stock on feral dogs.  The knight said, ‘If I find them.’ “

“And she was in your path, is that it?”

“Yes, and no.  I don’t know, Jon.  I feel—“  Rhaegar’s fingers clenched against the back of his neck, clinging, his voice dropping until he whispered against Jon’s skin so low Jon strained to hear him.  “She is wild, and too good to die young.  Perhaps it’s that she reminds me of you.” 

By logic, that shouldn’t be enough.  Robert is stubborn and brash and dangerous and if they play this wrong, he could bite harder than Rhaegar expects.  There’s the Northmen, too, and the potential anger of Aerys and Dorne because no matter what they tell Elia she can’t tell everyone.  There are a hundred pitfalls, too many to risk for one person, even two people. 

Too many for logic, at least. 

Jon tastes Rhaegar on his lips, wraps his arms a little closer around his lover’s neck.  “ _Avey_ —“  Off his tongue it doesn’t sound quite right, already clumsy and off and he stops himself, smiles when Rhaegar kisses him before he can start over. 

“ _Avy jorraelan_.”  Rhaegar says it again against his temple, again against his ear in a voice soft and clear.  “Like that.  Try again.” 

“ _Avy jorraelan_.”  It doesn’t roll of his tongue all liquid fire the way it does off Rhaegar’s but then again, he’s not the blood of the dragon; he doesn’t have Valyria in his veins.  Or at least he wasn’t born with it, but Rhaegar’s kiss is blistering hot, his body pressed so close Jon has to wonder if someday by force of will Rhaegar just might put something of himself in Jon’s veins after all. 

\-------

From the gates of King’s Landing, there are at least a 132 steps to Rhaegar’s room, if you take the shortest path.  They counted once when Jon was fourteen, laughing and darting in and out of each other’s reach every step of the way.  Even then, he didn’t take them half so fast as he has now.  His lungs are burning with the effort, and still he’d run as much of the distance as he had to over again.  It’s only the sight of white outside Rhaegar’s door that pulls him up short, almost stumbling he stops so abruptly.

“Ser Jaime.  At the gate they could only tell me—“ 

“Princess Elia is still being tended by the maesters, my lord.  The boy is with a wet nurse for the time being.” 

 _The boy_.  She’s just given birth to the heir of the Seven Kingdoms, and if all Rhaegar wrote him is true she may not live to hold him.  There’s little about life that’s fair, but the injustice of that prospect is enough to leave him sick. 

He scrubs a hand over his eyes, pressing hard at the corners.  “Is Rhaegar with her?”  Too late, he curses the familiarity.  Everyone knows, yes, but he can’t make a habit of being so lax, certainly not with the guard.  In public, appearances have to be maintained; he’s always known that and yet Rhaegar’s begun to make him forget.  He’s not sure what that means, if it’s good or dangerous or both, but now isn’t the time to figure out. 

“He was, but the little princess was frightened.  His highness brought her here to calm her.” 

Frightened, because she must have heard the screaming.  The need to go to Elia hits his stomach in an unexpected wave, so hard he bites his tongue until he tastes blood.  Before morning he’ll be with her; he’ll open every goddamn window in her chambers so he can hold her hand and tell her just how the sun looks on the Red Keep.  He’ll be something of the friend she deserves, but he can’t help that first and foremost, Rhaegar is _his_ , and it’s Rhaegar that sent him a raven with a note written with his own shaking hands. 

_She’s dying, Jon.  Come home._

There’s sympathy in Jaime Lannister’s eyes and whether it’s real or not, Jon’s grateful for it.  “Thank you, ser.” 

The boy nods, so solemn for one so young.  You wouldn’t think it to watch him in the lists, but there are contrasts in this one that Jon has yet to fully understand.  He’s full of humor and pride and gravity in what seem near equal measures, and though Jon’s loathe to lend his support to any of Aery’s decisions these days, he has to admit he seems to have a good one in bringing Ser Jaime into the seven. 

He steps aside to let Jon in, and though he opens the door as quietly as he can he isn’t surprised to find that before he can shut it behind him he’s already being watched. 

By the light of the single candle lit on his nightstand Rhaegar’s eyes are little more than pinpricks of reflection, and it’s a moment before Jon’s eyes adjust enough for him to see the lump huddled against his chest.  The closer he steps the more she comes into focus until he can see the curl of Rhaenys’s hand against her father’s shirt, her little face buried so thoroughly against his shoulder she hasn’t stirred at all. 

“I came as fast as I could.”  Even the barest whisper sounds loud in this cathedral quiet, but her shoulders rise and fall with the same even tempo.

“I know.”  The emptiness in Rhaegar’s voice cuts him, reminds him of dark nights and how hard it sometimes is to pull Rhaegar out of his own shadows.  Jon swallows, takes a seat on the edge of the bed with as much as he can.  He means to take the hand Rhaegar doesn’t have wrapped around his daughter, but before he can Rhaegar reaches for him.  Their fingers slip together and come to rest against his thigh, and some measure of the tightness in Jon’s chest eases like loosened string. 

“I had to get her out of there.  She could hear Elia screaming and the septas kept trying to tell her it wasn’t her mother but she’s not stupid.”

“No, she isn’t.”  Far from it, in fact, though from Rhaegar and Elia’s daughter Jon would expect no less.  Jon smoothes his thumb against Rhaegar’s, his tan skin darker by candlelight against Rhaegar’s pale white than it ever looks in the light of day.  There are no right words to say, here.  He can’t ask if he’s alright, not when he knows he isn’t.  “Elia’s strong, Rhaegar.”

Rhaegar hums soft and low.  “She is, but even she only has so much blood to lose.”  He tilts his head back as he looks Jon over, eyes narrowing.  “And you’re hurt.” 

To be honest, in the rush he’d forgotten the bloodstains against his shoulder, forgotten even the pull and burn of torn skin.  It isn’t nothing, but it’s not enough to worry about, though he knows when the chance comes Rhaegar will search the edges of scar it leaves with his mouth.  Jon will appreciate that, later. 

“It’s nothing; I’m fine.”  His fingers squeeze against Rhaegar’s, a distraction before he changes the subject.  “I should go send a raven; Oberyn should know.” 

“Send a dozen if you like; I’ve already done it but more won’t hurt.  Last I heard from Doran he was still in the Free Cities.”  The unspoken truth hangs between them, in the look they exchange before Jon shakes his head.  If she’s dying, Oberyn should be here to hold her but if she’s dying, she’ll do it before he could even make it out of Dorne.  Even if he _were_ home, even if he rode his horse until it collapsed under him and was forced to get off and run.  If word reaches him, he’ll do anything to get to her, but even desperate men can’t fly. 

The muffled sound of Rhaenys shifting draws them both out of their thoughts and to the little one blinking up at them with her mother’s eyes.  For her, the shadow fades from Rhaegar’s until they’re nothing but soft, rich indigo.  His fingers rake through the tangle of her hair, and he smiles as he nods toward Jon. 

“Look who’s come while you were sleeping.  Our griffin’s home to watch over us.” 

She reaches for him, and though Jon’s pulled her into his arms a thousand times his throat still tightens when she clings to him, enough that he’s sure it always will. 

“He’s _my_ knight; he said so.”  Three years old, and already she’s mastered the air of command.

“And he was mine first; it’s not very good of you not to share, you know.” 

Jon chuckles against her shoulder, turns to kiss her hair.  “None of that; you know I love you both.” 

More than he can say, more than anything.  He tucks her in between the two of them, and though she asks after her mother twice it’s not long before she’s sleepy and burrowing into him.  Rhaegar kisses him once, chaste but lingering and he can’t help but notice that she sees and thinks nothing of it, only blinks and yawns and falls asleep safe and surrounded. 

He hasn’t cried since he got the letter, but the realization of how full her innocence is the last stroke that finally makes his eyes burn.  She knows nothing of the horrors of the world, but if Elia dies, that won’t be true anymore.  If Elia dies, everything changes. 

He hasn’t slept in over a day, but there’s no sleep to be found after that, either. 


End file.
